salute [h.s]

chapter 13 - anonymous attacker & hurt hips

Now, Liam as a weapons instructor was amazing. He was patient, so incredibly patient which was a godsend when it came to dealing with Piper, who was hard-headed and set in her ways. He was willing to go at her pace, often letting her get completely exhausted with her own stubborn way of doing things before he jumped in to correct her and teach her the proper way. Best of all, he was encouraging, praising her when she got things right and being supportive when she fucked it up, helping to correct her mistakes.

Liam as a self-defence trainer was the exact opposite. He was a fucking slave driver. Piper had been tossed onto her back more times than she could count, thrown to the mat with no consideration for how much littler she was than him. Did he not realize that he was like the fucking hulk? And that when he slammed her to the mat, he slammed her to the mat?

And worse, when she tried to get him to back off a bit, slow down, take it easier, he got tougher. By the end of the session, he was acting like a drill sergeant and Piper couldn't feel any of her limbs. Right now, she hurt so bad that she didn't even know how she was still standing up. Liam was going to pay for this. She would get her revenge.

"Listen," she said to her mum with a sigh, "I don't want to talk about it. It was just a really awful day and I don't want to even think about it anymore. Just want to put it behind me."

"Sure, darling, whatever you say." Her mum was sounding increasingly distracted, as if she hadn't really cared in the first place about Piper's day, that she had just been asking for the sake of being polite. Bloody typical. "While I've got you on the phone, I wanted to ask if you were planning to come up to the house for Christmas eve?"

"'Course, mum," Piper said without a thought because she had assumed it was just a given. Christmas Eve had always been the day that they celebrated Christmas as a family. On actual Christmas Day, the entire extended family came over and it was all a big chaotic mess of cousins and aunts and uncles. It was horrid really and when Piper had been a kid, she spent most of the day hiding away in her room so her second cousin who was two years younger would stop trying to kiss her (honestly, it was horrifying).

Christmas Eve was different though. The four of them would all sit together in the living room, a miracle in and of itself, and watch a Christmas movie. When Piper had been a kid, it had been Home Alone. Sometime when she was 14, Love Actually came out on dvd and they switched to that instead. It had always been one of Piper's favourites except that her mum always dramatically covered Piper's eyes when Martin Freeman and Joanna Page were fucking. That's Christmas in the Stone house for you.

"That's so good, Pips," her mum said with a dramatic sigh.

"Why wouldn't I be coming up? I come up every single Christmas. Even when I lived in Massachusetts, I still came for Christmas Eve. I'm pretty sure I can manage a half hour tube ride."

"It's nothing darling." There was a strange, sad undertone to her mum's words and Piper knew this wasn't the end of it. Something else was going on.

"You sound upset, mum. What's happened?"

"Nothing, Pips. It's just –" she sighed so heavily on the other end that Piper practically felt it through the phone. "Your brother's just rung and said him and Mimi are flying to Tenerife for the holidays. They wanted to get in a holiday before the baby comes."

Piper rolled her eyes hard. Of course this was Andrew's fucking fault. He was so selfish. He knew that Christmas Eve was important to their mum and he still scheduled a holiday. Would it kill him to wait two days before they left? But no, they had to go away for Christmas Eve. Piper could picture it now, Andrew and Mimi on a beach somewhere, Mimi in a bikini despite being nearly six months pregnant and Andrew with his milky white skin reflecting the sun and burning the retinas of all the other poor vacationers. He was such a twat.